OLD: Radishes and Redheads
by It's Molly
Summary: When Luna's mother had died, she had not spoken for a month and nine days. Eventual LLRW. Is that a shipping description? I'm sure you can work it out, anyway. Rating may be upped later?
1. Prologue

**author's note: This one's short, sorry. And this will notnotnot be a oneshot. I really want to continue it. Hurrah. Even if nobody likes it or cares. -emoface- (and R&R?)**

When Luna's mother had died, she had not spoken for a month and nine days. She was not sulking – how could she be, when she wasn't angry? She wasn't angry at the world for taking her mother away, or at her father for letting her die, or even at her mother for going and dying in the first place. No, Luna was merely mourning her mother. It seemed more fitting than dressing in black. Besides... everyone knew that black attracted Nargles. Luna's father was not angry at her for not speaking and, unlike the teachers at the school she went to, did not attempt to force her to do so. When he found out that Luna had stopped attending school he did not yell at her, but quietly withdrew her from the school. She would be homeschooled. From then on, Luna learnt the muggle subjects from her wizard father; she learnt more from him than she had ever done from her qualified teachers. She was nine years old.

Her first words when she spoke again were 'Tell me about the time you met'. At the time she was dressed in her pyjamas, standing by her father's door with her hair in a matted mess. It was six in the morning Xenophilius sat her down on his bed and they talked and talked and talked about the witch who they had, really, loved an awful lot even if they'd sometimes laughed at her. During the conversation they ate several times, dressed, and went out for brief walks, talking all the while. When they stopped talking it was half two in the morning of the following day. They had been talking for over twenty hours. Luna had known her mother for nine years and Xenophilius for quite a while longer, but they fell four hours short of filling _one single day_ with conversation about her. If Luna hadn't been drowning in sleep, she might have felt guilty.

They were not one of those families who pretends a death has never happened and burns all the photographs. Luna's mother beamed down at her from all over the walls, and Luna never tired of hearing her father tell stories of their various meetings and their eventually getting together, their marriage, everything up to Luna as a toddler. Because as soon as they got to Luna's childhood she would join in. She remembered it all – not her birth, obviously, and not her stumbling around learning to walk, but everything from her first serious injury (her mother tried to put a spell on the swing in the park nearby so that it would swing especially high, but instead the climbing frame caught fire and Luna fell off and hit her head off the ground trying to twist to see it) to a rare heart-to-heart she'd had with her mother when she was seven. They did not just discuss Adrienne's strengths, but also her weaknesses and flaws. At first, she felt slightly guilty to her mother, but eventually they became able to laugh at her faults as if she was there with them giggling too. Luna never thought that she was, for all her odd beliefs. In the wizard world, the dead staying dead might not be a sure guarantee, but Luna hardly ever felt her mother's presence. She didn't, however, think that she was _gone_. She was _somewhere_, wherever that might be. Maybe it was just another comforting thought, maybe Luna was on to something – nobody could know.

Luna had practically become a recluse by the time her Hogwarts letter arrived. It wasn't that she'd have been hugely popular at Hogwarts otherwise, and it wasn't because of her mother's death that she was weird. But the fact that she hadn't talked to other children her age for two years meant that her arrival at the wizarding school was even more awkward than it might have been. Luna had no idea what to say to the others, so she sat on her own. The Ravenclaw table was crowded at one end, full of curious, whispering children with bright eyes and interested faces; at the other end was a gap. On one of the very last seats was Luna, and opposite-and-to-the-left of her was a small, freckled blonde boy who was intently picking his nose.

"Hello," she said, vaguely. He looked up at her for a moment before returning to his former occupation, and after a few seconds Luna forgot him and gazed into space again, drifting between daydreams in her mind. She was determined to do well at Hogwarts. She didn't know what she wanted to be, because so many jobs were stooped in conspiracy or secrets or half-hidden lies, but she knew that she wanted to get good results. She'd promised her father that she would try and do her best, even if that wasn't very good. Instead of reassuring her, as a father might be expected to, he had simply nodded.

Luna did not mention her mother's death at Hogwarts – at least, not at first. In the middle of her first night there she threw some robes on over her pyjamas, sneaked out of the dormitory and found the Thestrals. Leaning her weight against them, she looked up at the cloudy sky and wondered why it was that you could never just look up and see the stars. It started to rain, which Luna took as a good omen, and she let the dirty water soak her clothes.

She shivered all through the next day.


	2. A Bond With The Sorting Hat?

**a/n: bah, this isn't an especially good chapter. I think I may have killed Luna through first person. And it's basically just the bit from the prologue but with more detail, but… I wanted to take this semi-slowly.**

'Well, you're an odd one, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am,' I reply out loud, to laughter from my future classmates. Apparently, talking to a magical hat is not the coolest thing to do, or a thing to do at all. I feel this is a tad unfair: if a hat can talk, how is it fair to not reply? I shall certainly not be so unsociable, especially as it is now considering my choices. I know about all four houses and their reputations, and I've decided that I'll try my best to live up to the description of whichever I'm sorted into. After all, what is the Hat if it is not a fortune teller of sorts – far more powerful than any 'Seer'? (As a note, the Seers are part of a dark, twisted plot to kidnap the rarest type of Snorkack and use them to put an ancient curse on all vampires. But I expect you already knew that.)

'Gryffindor is brave, as are you,' it begins. 'But you are not a hero… at least, not foremostly.'

I feel slightly proud that I know what "foremostly" means, because I'm not convinced that everyone here does, and nod. Then I wonder if the Hat understands its being bounced around to be a form of communication and agree, 'No, I wouldn't call myself that.' More laughter. For a moment I consider asking the hat its (is it male or female?) name, but then decide that's equivalent to asking a teacher their name. So I just sit and wait for its next declaration.

'Hufflepuff, perhaps? In some ways, you are innocent… even naïve. But in others you understand far too much. As for Slytherin – _well_. Could you betray someone, Miss Lovegood?'

I wait for it to announce that I am in Slytherin, that I will have to start lying and tricking people and stamping on people's feet. I'm mystified, but the Sorting Hat has never been wrong. At least, you never hear of it being wrong. It is, however, being startlingly _silent_ at the minute, and after coughing to check I haven't suddenly gone deaf, I answer the question I assumed to be rhetorical: 'I don't know.'

There are another few seconds of silence, then 'Ravenclaw!' it booms, and I am stunned. Wordlessly, I rise and make my way to the house's table, where they stare at me as if I have a nasty skin infection, presumably on the grounds that anyone who talks to hats will probably eat them in their sleep. I walk to the end of the table, which is virtually deserted, and sit. More names are called out, and I watch with interest and try to guess what the Hat is telling them. Children are sorted into all houses, and after a while I begin to notice the subtle patterns: the cocky Slytherin smirk, the smug look, the swagger; the meek Hufflepuff hurry; the defiant Gryffindor grin; the indifference of those in my own house. I note that, to my delight, those entering Ravenclaw seem the most varied, closely followed by the Hufflepuffs. The Gryffindors and Slytherins, however, wear near identical expressions when told their fate, clapping hands with one another because – naturally – all their friends are in the same house. I watch as Harry Potter is sorted into Gryffindor, as everyone knew he would be. He talks to a red-haired boy who I think the teacher said was a Weasley (I've heard of the Weasleys before).

'Setting yourself up for a fall there!' a voice behind me remarks. I turn to see Hufflepuff's ghost, the Fat Friar. 'Oh, yes,' he continues, 'you're all the same now, but let me tell you this – Harry Potter's going to have a fair amount of fangirls by the time he leaves this school, I'll bet on that.'

I look at him, quite startled at the conclusion he has obviously jumped to for no apparent reason other than that I have looked – briefly – at a boy. If looking at Harry Potter automatically means you have fallen for him, I can see from a glance that Harry has a _hell_ of a lot of fangirls already (possible, actually)… and that about ninety percent of the boys here are less than straight. Giving the Fat Friar a disdainful look (with a hint of curiosity, as I have never met a ghost before), I turn to the food which has newly appeared on the table. After casting a careful glance over it to ensure that there is nothing lurking in it (you'd be surprised by how many creatures make their nests in food), I fill my plate. When the feast is over and we are all in danger of becoming clinically obese, prefects appear and usher us to our dormitories. I don't especially like having to share a room with so many others, but I have to admit that the beds are lovely. I sink into one. Unfortunately, sinking into a bed does not mean that I'll sleep, and I eventually decide that a walk around the castle might help a little.

'Ssh,' I say, rather pointlessly, as the girl next to me stirs when I move from my bed. I'm not sure if it's because of my shushing or not, but she mumbles something and starts snoring again pretty quickly.

I pull on a random bunch of clothes over my pyjamas and head out. It's cold, but I don't really care. I've never been acutely sensitive to the temperature; I always used to stay out in the cold for hours and hours and then get ill. We think that some unknown species of creature multiplies in the cold faster, then sneaks up and puts something in victims' noses which leads to what is known as 'the common cold' amongst wizards and muggles alike. (Of course, we can cure it a lot easier.) I'm pretty sure it's true – have _you_ never felt something shooting up your nose shortly before a cold begins?

The creatures pulling the carriages which take first-years up to the castle are called Thestrals. I know this because my father told me, as he told me why I can see them when others couldn't. I'm not sure whether I view this as a disadvantage or not. Not having a dead mother – being able to see the creatures. Anyway, when I go out I decide to go looking for them. They are… majestic and beautiful. And they make me feel like they understand me, which they probably do. Animals are cleverer than we wizards consider them to be.

I find them pretty quickly. My father says I'm good at finding things I want to find, whether finding them is a bonus in the long run or not. I kneel down beside them and whisper to them, then realise that it is outside and nobody can hear me and I speak to them instead. I don't say that they are cute or anything pathetic like that. I know when respect is deserved, and I give it accordingly.

'Hello,' I tell a Thestral. 'My name is Luna Lovegood.'

It seems to nod, but I may have imagined it. I imagine things quite a lot; people are always telling me off for it. Not my father, because he's not as stupid as most people are. He doesn't say that sort of thing, ever. I suppose it's partly because he's just like me. It's because of him that I'm… well, who I am.

'I'm eleven years old,' I add helpfully. 'But you probably knew that, 'cause I'm one of the first-years.'

After a while I give up speaking and just stand there. Which is quite nice, really. And it's raining, and that's also nice, and I smile a bit because everything's nice and I didn't really expect it to be. And eventually, when I'm tired of standing there in the rain smiling, I go back inside quietly and argue with the portrait for a while, and then I take off the robes and lie back in bed and I really do fall asleep this time.


End file.
